


grip them tight and raise them from pernicion

by Flux



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Bisexual Dean, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff, Hate to Love, Jealous Castiel, Jealous Dean Winchester, M/M, Matchmaker Anna Milton, Matchmaker Sam, No Angst, Romantic Comedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-04
Updated: 2014-01-04
Packaged: 2018-01-07 10:16:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1118709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flux/pseuds/Flux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean and Cas have been at each other's throats for years, but Anna and Sam are determined to change that for the better.  With a well-placed love letter and some careful direction, they manage to get the two into a semi-antagonistic, fiercely competitive, and emotionally confusing game of relationship chicken.  Now they just need to get to prom.</p>
            </blockquote>





	grip them tight and raise them from pernicion

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FrecklesHideNothing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrecklesHideNothing/gifts).



> For the prompt: Much Ado About Nothing/Supernatural crossover extravaganza! Basically, previous relationship where one scorned the other, long absence, then meeting up publicly for first time in forever. Cue banter, quick wit, repressed feelings and a plot conceived by their friends to get them to acknowledge their true feelings for each other. Traditionally one is viewed as womaniser, the other a harpy... Up to author which is which and if they know the original and want to delve into the Hero/Claudio subplot so that it's a tragedy that eventually makes them own up to each other.
> 
> Hope you don't mind I put them all in high school and left out most of the Hero/Claudio plotline! Merry belated Christmas!
> 
> I changed the age gap between Sam and Dean to 3 years instead of 4 so that they'd both be in the same school at the same time.
> 
> Beta'd by the lovely [C](deantakesitinthecas.tumblr.com) and wonderful [M](http://rainynickel.livejournal.com/). Also shout out to farawaystardust who corrected my Spanish!

“You think this is gonna work?” Sam whispers to Anna as they watch Dean open up his locker.

She shushes him, hand tightening around his shoulder.

Dean finds the note immediately. It’s hard not to. They picked the most obnoxiously bright blue paper they could find at the crafts store and wrote on it with silver glitter pen.

“Cas wouldn’t use silver glitter pen,” Anna had protested, but Sam had carefully explained that wasn’t the point. The point was to get Dean’s attention. After all, he’d figure out Cas didn’t write the note as soon as he confronted him about it.

Anna jabs a fingers into his side before pointing excitedly at her cousin coming down the hall. The other students wander past, caught up in their own worlds, completely oblivious to the show about to start, but Sam is ready.

Except nothing happens. Dean tucks the note back in his locker, picks out the books he needs for his morning classes, and shuts the door just as Cas comes up to the locker next to his. Sam waits for his brother to say something. He waits as Dean stares at the side of Cas’ face. He waits as Dean picks up his backpack. He waits as Dean walks away.

“What the hell?” he whispers as they stand in stunned silence. “I mean, I wasn’t expecting magic or anything, but I was expecting _something_.”

“Yeah,” Anna mutters next to him, rolling her shoulders and throwing up her hands. “Ugh, whatever. If those two dunceheads want to feed the UST until they’re eighty then that’s their own damn fault. I’m out.”

“No!” Sam protests, chasing after Anna as she heads towards homeroom. “Think of them like baby otters! Baby otters covered in oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill! If we don’t rehabilitate them, they’ll drown from the weight of their own soggy fur!”

Anna sighs as she takes her seat at the front of the room. “Fine. But you’re buying me Blizzards for a week!”

Sam sticks out his hand for a quick shake before he has to leave for his own classroom.

“Deal.”

 

 

 

***

 

Dean stares down at the note in the safety of his own bedroom, trying to figure out the intent behind this newest act of mischief. Is Cas messing with him? They’ve done some pretty shitty stuff to each other over the years but it’s always been obvious what it meant.

The stinky socks in Cas’ locker screamed “I hate you.”

The sand in Dean’s shoes shouted “You disgust me.”

The singing birthday telegrams in every single one of Cas’ classes on a random Thursday in October (Cas’ birthday is in June and Dean only knows that because Sam helped Anna plan the party) said “I want you to die of embarrassment.”

The angelfish in Dean’s bio class terrarium blared “Stay the hell away from me.”

But this, this takes the cake, and Dean has no idea how to respond. He reads over the note again.

_Dearest Dean,_

_I have secretly admired you for many years now, but I am too embarrassed to tell you face to face. I think you are brave and smart and exceptionally kind to your wonderful brother, Sam. If you are willing to give me a chance, I believe we could make an excellent couple._

_Love, Castiel._

Is this some subtle threat to Sam? No, Cas wouldn’t do that, if not for Sam’s sake then for Anna’s. Dean knows the cousins are close and for all his shortcomings, Cas seems to be an attentive brother-figure.

So then what the hell is this note? Maybe Cas is just playing with him. Maybe this freak out _is_ the point.

“He’s growing more devious,” he tells his fish.

The sound of Sam's heavy footsteps clomping up the stairs spurs Dean into motion.  He shoves the note back under his pillow, props his feet up on the covers, and cracks open his book to feign interest in the adventures of Alonso and his lady love.

“Dean?” Sam says, pausing at the door just long enough for Dean to look up before flopping down on the foot of the bed.

“What’s up, short stuff?”

Sam scowls at the nickname and Dean sniggers. Sam is only a couple inches shorter now, so he has to get maximum mileage out of the hated nickname while he can.

“Did anything interesting happen at school today?” Sam asks, propping himself up on one arm.

“Um,” Dean glances at his pillow to make sure there isn’t anything incriminating sticking out from underneath. “Nah, not really. Victor got voted MVP again, but that’s not really news by the seventh time.”

Sam nods and stares while Dean struggles through _Don Quixote_. Two minutes later, Dean glances up to see his brother’s narrowed eyes still fixed firmly on his face.

“Why?” Dean asks suspiciously. “Anything interesting happen to _you_ today?”

Sam shakes his head quickly. “Anna invited me over to her place for dinner. We’re going to work on our history project afterwards, if that’s okay.”

“Yeah,” Dean says, flooding with relief. Nothing bad, then. “You going to walk?”

“Bike,” Sam says. “But her dad can give me a ride back in his pick-up.”

“You sure?” Dean sets his book down to look his brother in the eye. “I can always go pick you up.”

“It’s fine, Dean,” Sam says, getting off the bed. “My bike won’t fit in the Impala anyways. I’m going to head out in an hour.”

Dean nods and goes back to “reading” his book while secretly plotting a counter attack against Cas’ mysterious note.

 

 

 

***

 

“I don’t know!” Sam moans, face buried in the fuzzy pillow on the Miltons’ couch. “He didn’t mention it _at all_. Normally, all Cas has to do is sneeze and he won’t stop talking about it for hours.”

“Maybe we were too subtle,” Anna suggests as she browses through websites on the Spanish Inquisition.

Sam props himself up onto his elbows to stare at her incredulously. “We used silver glitter pen! How much more obvious can you get?”

Anna shrugs and jots something down in her notebook. “I don’t know. ‘Please, Dean, I’ve been obsessed with you since middle school and I’m still a virgin because I can’t imagine having sex with anyone but you’?”

Sam gapes at his friend in shock. “Anna! He’s your cousin.”

She scoffs and flips her red hair over her shoulder. “It’s not like _I_ want to have sex with him. And I only know because I heard Aunt Rachel talking about it with my mom.”

“Dude,” Sam says with a snort, “Your parents are weird.”

She shrugs again. “Hey, your dad probably talks about this stuff, too. Just not where you can hear it.”

Sam takes a moment to process this disgusting fact before shaking the thought away and flopping back onto the couch, chin propped up on the armrest. “We need a new plan of attack.”

“How about a puppet show?” Anna asks.

Sam tries to figure out how that would help in any way before giving up. Anna thinks out of the box. It’s one of the things he likes about her, but sometimes he just doesn’t follow how she gets from point A to point B. “How is that going to get my idiot brother and your idiot cousin together by prom?”

“Not those two morons, you moron.” She chucks an eraser at the top of his head and he lets out a short yelp as it bounces. “Our history project. Remember? The thing we’re _supposed_ to be working on?”

“Oh, right,” Sam sighs and hunches back over their textbook before realizing that he still doesn’t quite know what Anna is talking about. “A puppet show?”

“You know,” she throws out over her shoulder, “instead of an oral presentation. We can do something like those Monty Python cutscenes with the really bad special effects.”

Sam thinks about it for a moment and breaks into a huge grin. “This is going to be awesome.”

“Yeah,” Anna snorts. “I know.”

 

 

 

***

 

Anna stares up at her ceiling as she lies in bed at night. The glow in the dark stars she pasted up there on her tenth birthday still shine faintly as if reminding her not to give up.

Sam is incredibly book-smart, but she’s the real brains behind their little operation.

The deal is this: she and Sam really want to go to the dance at the end of the school year (they call it prom but it’s open to all grades). It’s dumb and completely out of her wheelhouse as far as social functions go, but hey, she wants what she wants and Sam is a big enough girl about it to get excited over rented tuxes and slow dancing to Time of My Life. Unfortunately, the only way her parents are going to let her go is if Cas is there, and the only way Cas would be there is if one Dean Winchester asks him to go. School dances don’t really seem to be Dean’s thing, but Sam assures her he has that part covered (something about photos and women’s underwear).

As an added bonus, she can claim to be the one to end the literal years’ worth of tension that’s been building between those two. If she let them go off to college without some sort of resolution, they might just explode from the number of pranks they stock up in their months apart.

Oh, of course, Cas acts like he hates Dean’s guts, but she’s caught him staring at Winchester-the-elder’s butt enough times during baseball games (that they have no real reason to be at) to know otherwise. And Sam is ninety percent sure that his brother feels the same way.

His exact words were, “With the amount of time Dean spends talking about Cas, even Dad is starting to pick up on it.” Which is saying something since Mr. Winchester is home maybe five days a month.

Now they just have to get them together.

The original assumption had been that Dean would make the first move. He was, after all, more experienced with these things. Sam claims that the new locks on the janitors closets are only there because Dean’s been caught making out in them one too many times.

“He just takes them out under the bleachers now,” Sam had noted, wrinkling his nose in disgust.

But maybe all the experience was a hindrance, not an aid. Maybe Dean has become too comfortable with the easy kills, chasing down bunny rabbits while Cas is a full-blown buffalo: intimidating with his shaggy brown hair and ominous presence. Not that _she_ finds her cousin terrifying, but she’s seen him stare down full-grown men with his laser eyes of doom.

Maybe they should refocus their efforts on Cas, who’s fresh out of the gate and ready to pounce. Except Cas doesn’t pounce. Cas sits there quietly, lulling you into a false sense of security, then pins you down under the weight of air-tight logic and sad puppy eyes and familial obligation. So the first of those probably won’t work on Dean’s special form of denial and doing everything the hard way, and the last won’t work because, luckily, they’re not related, but the pathetic face her cousin can pull (and she is resolutely trying to learn) could sway even the mighty Dean Winchester.

If only she can get him to _use_ his powers (for good of course).

She flips over so that the stars on her ceiling are hidden by her pillow and she plots.

 

 

 

***

 

Castiel bypasses the food line and heads for the table at the far side of the cafeteria where Dean is furiously flipping through his textbook. Jo, Benny, and Victor are seated around him, joking and eating, but all that stops when he sets his bag down and takes a seat.

“Hey Cas,” Jo greets him and Victor gives him a wave before they go back to their conversation. Benny just eyes him suspiciously as he takes threatening, toothy bites of his pasta dish.

“Dean,” Cas says, pausing as Dean holds up a hand.

“Unless someone is dead, dying, or Maggie Q naked on a beach, it can wait until I’m done with this problem,” Dean announces, not bothering to look up.

Cas peers across the table to see Dean scribbling down the derivation of some trigonometric function. Calculus, from the looks of it, is the class Dean has right after lunch.

“I believe the intent of homework is to complete it at home,” he says conversationally.

“Funny,” Dean says dryly as he circles his answer. “Well those positions have been filled, so this had to settle for being lunchwork. Now what do you want?”

“Anna came and spoke to me this morning.”

“That’s real fascinating, Cas,” Dean drawls as he picks up his own plate of spaghetti and sauce. “My cousins talk to me sometimes, too. I’ll let you know next time Gwen calls.”

The low, familiar anger that accompanies most interactions involving Dean curls against his chest. “I’ll be sure to offer her my condolences,” he snips. “I can understand how painful it must be to correspond with you.”

“Then you must be a masochist since you’re still here talking to me,” Dean points out, reminding Castiel why he came over in the first place, then grins. “Kinky.”

Castiel’s jaw clenches shut as he swallows and forces himself back on track. “Don’t worry, Dean, I’m only here under extenuating circumstances. If it weren’t for my concern for my family, I’d rather bite my own tongue out than subject myself to your impudent manner and childish sense of humor.”

“Might do us all some good,” Dean mutters, rolling his eyes before shoving a forkful of noodles into his mouth, effectively silencing himself for a few seconds, which gives Castiel a chance to state his case.

“Earlier, I overheard Anna and Sam talking about some plan of yours to ask me to prom. I don’t know what you have planned, but whatever it is you are trying to do, don’t. I don’t know why you would think I’d say yes to such a proposition, but Anna has been looking forward to finally attending a high school dance since last summer and I don’t want you to ruin it with one of your ridiculous pranks.”

“My ridiculous pranks?” Dean says, mouth still stained with tomato sauce. “Your damn angelfish ate Adam!”

Cas blinks. “Adam?”

“His mosquito fish,” Jo chips in. When Cas glances around the rest of the table, he notices that everyone is now focused on the two of them.

Discomfitted, he quickly concludes, “Whatever your feelings are over your fish, Anna is far more important and I should hope to see no disruptions from you at the dance.”

He’s about to leave when Dean says, “Wait. You mean you’re going? You, Mister I-can’t-be-bothered-with-the-concept-of-fun, are going to a school dance?”

Cas narrows his eyes, suspicious at Dean’s suspicion. He is hardly alien to the concept of fun. He is president of the Chess Club, after all, and first chair cello in the orchestra. Only after finding nothing malicious in Dean’s confused expression does he nod, once, tersely.

“Someone requested my presence there,” he adds.

“Who?” Dean demands, something like anger flashing across his features.

“That’s hardly any of your business now is it?” Cas answers and heads back to his own table. It may be his own imagination, but Dean calls after him, “Who the fuck is taking you to the dance?”

Cas is a little smug about that. If he’s lucky, the mystery of it will eat at Dean for the next two months. He’ll win their little war without lifting a finger. Of course, Anna is the one who asked to go. He doesn’t know why she thought he’d refuse. Just because he has no desire to go _with_ anyone doesn’t mean he’s completely adverse to spending an evening in an overcrowded gymnasium with awful music and pitiful catering to help out his cousin.

He does, however, find it curious that Dean would care at all.

 

 

 

***

 

“Who’s taking Cas to prom?” Dean demands as soon as Sam walks in the door. It’s been bothering him all day, ever since lunch. He was so distracted he let a grounder practically roll between his feet during practice. Coach gave him a reaming about it and he didn’t even care.

“What?”

“Oh come on,” Dean scoffs. “You’re all buddy buddy with Anna. Who is it?”

Sam blinks at him, utterly confused. “Someone asked Cas to prom?”

“Yes!” Dean throws his hands over his face. “You know what, I bet it was Crowley. That little creep’s had a thing for Cas ever since they did that history project together freshman year.”

He stomps his way into the kitchen and rummages through the fridge, producing bread, meat and cheese.

“You want a sandwich?” he asks Sam as he starts one of his own. His brother shakes his head and slides onto one of the stools at the island counter.

“So someone’s taking Cas to prom. Why do you care?”

Dean pauses, hand stuck inside the carton of sliced ham. “What?”

“Why do you care that someone is taking Cas to prom?” Sam repeats.

“Because,” Dean starts as he focuses on arranging the meat slices on top of his bread, “he’s a punk-ass nerd. Who the hell would want to take him to prom?”

“Uh-huh,” Sam agrees. “So you want to mess with him.”

“No,” Dean says without thinking, then realizes what he’s just said and quickly adds on, “I promised him I wouldn’t ruin it for Anna by pulling something on her cousin.” The tiny detail that he never actually made the promise could slide for now.

“You know what would really mess with him without actually disrupting Anna’s night?” Sam says carefully and Dean looks up at his brother.

“What?”

“If _you_ took Cas to prom,” Sam says with a proud smile.

Dean blinks, looks down at the finished sandwich on the counter, looks back up, blinks again. “Holy shit, that’s brilliant.” His brother is a genius. Of course he’s always known that Sammy was the smart one, but this is the crowning gem in his honor roll tiara. His thoughts go back to the note that’s now shoved in the bottom of his desk drawer. If a random love letter can screw with Dean’s head, actual wooing and dancing would completely undo Cas.

As an added bonus, he gets to steal Crowley’s prom date. Or maybe it isn’t Crowley. It might be Balthazar. Balthazar’s been practically drooling over Cas all year. Whatever, he doesn’t like either of them.

“Oh man,” Dean says, taking a big bite out of his sandwich. “Thish ish going to be awshum.”

 

 

 

***

 

“Wow,” Anna says, sitting down hard on the park bench with a Blizzard in one hand and Sam’s arm in the other. “That is not how I expected that to go.”

Cas was supposed to overhear Dean’s ‘plan’ to ask him out and then realize on his own how much he actually wanted that to happen. Then he’d accept and Dean would be forced to take him because, duh, he wants that to happen, too.

But this works just as well.

Sam sits down next to her and laces their fingers together. “Yeah. The baby otters are both kind of dense when it comes to this aren’t they?”

Anna snorts and leans into his side. “They deserve each other.”

Sam produces a few slices of bread he squirreled away in his sweatshirt pocket and starts ripping off pieces one-handed to feed to the geese.

“Don’t throw it into the water,” she cautions him around a mouthful of vanilla ice cream and Oreo. “It’ll sink to the bottom and breed botulism in the summer.”

“Mhm,” he agrees and they sit in silence for a little while. It’s still a little chilly out but Sam is a warm presence pressed against her.

“You think he’ll say yes?” Sam asks after a while.

“Who?”

“Cas. I’m pretty sure Dean is about to make a complete fool of himself trying to get your cousin to go to the dance with him now, but it’s not exactly going to work if Cas doesn’t say yes.”

Anna frowns. She hadn’t considered that. She just assumed he would because he has been pining after Dean for years, but maybe she’s giving him too much credit. After all, he hasn’t gotten the hint so far.

“Don’t worry,” she reassures Sam. “I got this. You just make sure Dean is committed on his end.”

Later, after they’ve walked around the pond twice and played on the swings for half an hour, Sam walks her home and pecks her on the cheek before heading home on his bike. It’s cute that he’s the one left blushing. Honestly, she’d be okay with a kiss on the lips, but Sam’s old school like that.

She hatches phase one of her strategy: wait and watch.

 

 

 

***

 

Castiel doesn’t know what’s going on.

Last Friday, as he was leaving his house to walk to school, the Impala was sitting at the end of his driveway. Dean’s Impala. The troublemaker himself was leaning against the side, staring up at the sky.

“Ahem,” Cas cleared his throat. “Can I help you?”

“Cas!” Dean said with a dazzling smile. “Hop in. Let me give you a ride to school.”

Castiel checked the back seat to make sure Benny wasn’t hiding back there, waiting to scare him, but there was nothing there but an old blanket and a crate full of books. He was about to ask to check the trunk when Dean rolled his eyes and leaned over to open the door on the passenger side.

“Just get in,” Dean said. “I know you’ve got your Latin thing in ten minutes.”

Castiel was so stunned that Dean knew about his club schedule that he let himself be pushed onto the leather bench seat and didn’t notice until the door had slammed shut behind him.

They were pulling out onto Mulberry when he reached for the seatbelt and found that there was nothing there.

“Where are the seatbelts?” he demanded when he noticed Dean didn’t have one either.

“The Impala’s a classy lady from the 60’s, dude. No seatbelts back then,” Dean said blithely as if he wasn’t risking both their lives.

“I hardly consider a complete lack of safety to be _classy_ ,” Cas said, clutching onto the door handle and bracing his feet against the floor.

Dean noticed and snorted. “You have got to learn to chill out, Cas.”

“Seeing as how my body will shortly be found in a morgue, I doubt that will be an issue.” Castiel glued his eyes to his surroundings, darting between the rearview mirror to the sideview mirror and back out through the windshield.

“A morgue? Really? I thought they beamed your kind back to the mothership when you died. You know, don’t want to let us humans get our hands on an alien organism.”

“I doubt _your kind_ would be able to understand the subtle differences between our avatars and a genuine human. The intricacies would make your minds implode.”

“Whoa, did you just make a pop culture reference?” Dean laughed. “Oh man, this is one for the record books. So what, that brings the number of movies you’ve watched up to one?”

Castiel was confused. “Buddhism is hardly a film.”

“And the count falls back to zero!” Dean made a mock explosive noise as they pulled up in front of the school.

Cas opened the door as soon as the car came to a stop at the curb and got out of the metal deathtrap as fast as he could manage. “I’m alive,” he breathed, half in jest, half in relief. Dean had shot him an offended scowl before heading to the parking lot and Cas thought it was the end of a rather perplexing episode in his life.

But then Dean had showed up again on Monday. In a Toyota.

“Did you steal a car?” Cas asked, staring wide-eyed at the sensible Japanese import that he’d heard Dean deride at least twice in the past month.

“Trust me, no one would steal a Camry from the nineties,” Dean said with a grimace. “My Uncle Bobby owns a scrapyard. He’s got about ten of these lying around so he let me borrow one as long as I fixed it up.”

“Is it insured?” Castiel said warily, still not quite believing his eyes. Dean Winchester driving an automobile that got more than twenty miles per gallon. “Is it registered?”

“Yes,” Dean rolled his eyes. “I’ve been working on this for two months. Was going to give it to Sam on his fifteenth birthday, but thought, why the heck not road test it some more?”

Castiel meant to demand whether or not it had been road tested before this little stint, but it was drizzling and two of the spokes on his umbrella were broken, so he nodded and slid into the front seat instead.

And that wasn’t the end of it. Dean shows up every morning to pick him up, and on days when Castiel’s after school activities end at the same time as baseball practice, Dean drives him home as well.

It’s completely baffling.

 

 

 

***

 

“He’s messing with you,” Anna says as she digs out the Twizzlers she keeps in her desk. Cas is sitting on her rug, petting Uriel’s ears as the bunny snuffles down against his foot.

Their parents are downstairs playing some embarrassingly middle-aged games after their weekly Bad Take-Out Night.

“I thought as much as well, but to what end? This isn’t inconvenient or humiliating. If anything, he’s making my life easier and placing himself in a position of shame by driving a Camry, even though he’s the only one who’d find that laughable.”

Anna crows in triumph on the inside, but on the outside, she munches on a handful of red licorice. Time to move on to phase two.

“You know, I think it might be reverse psychology. Like, he knows you’d be freaked out by him being nice, so he’s being as nice as he possibly can.”

Cas spends a good minute scratching a finger between Uriel’s ears before he speaks again. “Do you think Dean would do something like that?”

Anna snorts. “Do you think he wouldn’t?”

Cas tilts his head to the side, the one she recognizes as agreement. “It is rather brilliant. It’s difficult to retaliate against kindness.”

“Not really,” Anna shrugs, sliding off her desk chair onto the rug across from Castiel. “You just have to do the same thing, only better.”

“Kill him with kindness, as they say?” Cas says, one brow arched in consideration.

Oh yes. Anna is going to have to call Sam in order to gloat later.

 

 

 

***

 

“What in the world is that?” Benny says as he sits down next to Dean.

“A sandwich,” he answers offhandedly as he stares at Cas across the lunch room. Cas is smiling at him. The small one he uses when he’s pleased with himself, lips closed and eyes bright. “Cas made it for me.”

When he finally looks down (Cas looked away first to talk to that bastard, Balthazar), Benny is lifting up one end of the focaccia to peer at the contents. Dean slaps his hand away with a scowl.

“What’s even in there?” Benny asks incredulously.

Dean glares down at the sandwich. “Prosciutto, tomato, Italian mozzarella, fresh basil, and bean sprouts. On focaccia. With aioli.”

He knows because Cas had to repeat it three times before he just rolled his eyes and said, “Think of it as a fancy BLT.”

They both stare at the sandwich in silence until Jo sets her tray down with a clatter.

“The hell is that?” she asks when she notices what has their attention.

“ _Cas_ made our boy here a bag lunch,” Victor teases as he sits down next to her. He got the full story this morning during first period when Dean kept glancing down at the paper bag sitting in his backpack. “It’s a thank you gift for driving him to school every day last week.”

“You’ve been driving Castiel to school every day?” Jo wheezes, laughing. “Oh man, what’s happening to you?”

Dean doesn’t know. He picks up the sandwich. It smells like fresh bread and basil.

Benny rummages through the paper bag and pulls out the ziploc bag of homemade sweet potato chips.

“Baked,” Cas had said. “It’s healthier. You can’t just eat burgers and mac and cheese and pizza every day for lunch.”

Dean takes a bite out of the fancy BLT. It’s freaking delicious. If anything, that makes him more conflicted. Is Cas not getting the point of this whole thing? That it’s all just part of their continuing laundry list of pranks? Does Cas actually think he’s doing this to be nice?

Dean takes another bite. It’s still freaking delicious.

Or does Cas know exactly what he’s doing and he’s trying to beat Dean at his own game?

Dean looks up and finds Cas’ dark head across the cafeteria. Cas isn’t looking at him this time and Dean feels inexplicably disappointed.

“Dean!” Jo snaps her fingers in front of his eyes.

“What?” he says, still distracted.

“I _said_ these are amazing! You mind if I finish the bag?” She holds up the sweet potato chips in front of his face, half of it already gone. That also makes him inexplicably disappointed.

He should say yes. The chips don’t mean anything. Probably.

“No,” he says instead, snatching the bag from her hand. “I love sweet potato chips.”

He has never had a sweet potato chip in his life.

 

 

 

***

 

“Cas is smart,” Sam tells his brother after dinner. They’re in the living room working on homework together as some news program drones on in the background. “I doubt he’d take your sudden change of heart at face value.”

Sam watches as the confusion and tension drain from his brother. Over the years, Dean has developed somewhat of a reputation. He’s been caught with boys and girls in compromising positions in almost every part of the school.

But he doesn’t date. As soon as someone tries for something serious, Dean kicks them to the curb. Sam knows this because Dean got drunk one night at a party and came home to tell Sam all about his, frankly disappointing, modus operandi.

Thing is, Dean deserves more than a quickie in a bathroom stall. His brother has been practically raising him on his own since they bought the house when Sam was ten and Dean was thirteen. Their dad still travelled around, picking up PI jobs, so he was rarely home. Dean even got a job at the salvage yard to make some extra income for those couple of weeks every years when dad’s checks were delayed or simply never came.

Objectively speaking, Dean should get along great with Cas. Cas is the kind of guy who babysits for Ms. Olsen for free because she can’t really afford daycare on the weekends and spends his Christmas break wrapping presents for Toys for Tots. They both instinctually take care of people, but for some reason they’ve been butting heads since the day they met.

And maybe that’s the problem. Dean is kind of like an angry cat. A potential partner can’t look him in the eyes and approach him head on. That’ll only result in pain and blood and tears. No, the way to do it is to sidle up to him until you’re rubbing his back and he’s purring without knowing why.

So this is Sam helping keep Cas in Dean’s blind spot.

“Ugh,” Sam groans theatrically. “You know what this is? I told Anna about your new plan of attack and she probably told Cas.”

“Come on, Sam!” Dean says. “Bros before hos.”

“Anna is not a ho,” Sam says petulantly, bowing his head over his next algebra problem.

Dean sighs. “I know she’s not a ho. You know what I mean. I’m your brother. She’s your girlfriend. You can’t pick her over me!”

“Really?” Sam says, completely deadpan. “And what if we get married and have kids? Do I still pick you?”

“Of course,” Dean says with a cheeky grin and Sam shoves at his brother’s shoulder just so he knows the smile on Sam’s face does not mean he’s okay with that.

“But actually,” Sam says once Dean rights himself from the floor. “Cas is probably just giving as good as he gets.” Trying to get Dean to actually want something good for himself won’t work, so Sam appeals to something that will: his competitive spirit.

“Well,” Dean says, licking his lips, “I’m just going to have to give even better.”

 

 

 

***

 

When Cas opens the door for them on Friday night, he’s wearing nice jeans and a button down shirt. Not the loose white thing he puts on under his sweatervests. This one is dark blue and fitted and would actually look nice if the collar was straight and the front unwrinkled.

“Why are you dressed up for Chinese and charades?” Anna asks while their parents hug and uncork that week’s bottle of wine.

Cas looks down at himself in surprise, like he’s forgotten what he put on himself. “Dean is taking me to the movies.”

Anna fights back the giggles when her cousin looks back up with full on deer-in-headlights eyes.

“Mother said this would be more appropriate than what I wore to school.”

Anna doesn’t remember what that was, but given Cas’ propensity for shapeless sweaters and over-sized coats, she most likely agrees.

“And Aunt Rachel is going to let you leave looking like that?”

Cas glances down at his shirt again. “When I came downstairs, she sighed and said ‘good thing you don’t actually have to try to get that boy’s attention.’”

This time Anna can’t fight back the snort. She grabs her cousin by the wrist and leads him back towards the laundry room.

“Off,” she commands, jerking at the front of his shirt. He obediently hands the garment over and stands with his arms wrapped around him, hunched in against the cold.

“You know you’re going to have to learn to do this yourself when you go to college,” she chides as she hooks up the iron and pours water into the chamber.

“I know how to iron a shirt,” he says sullenly.

“So why didn’t you?”

“This isn’t an interview or a meeting or a court appearance, Anna. We are going to see the Star Wars marathon showing in Boundbrook Community Theatre.”

Anna pauses in her ironing. BCT is a dumpy little place in the next town over. It’s the kind of place where you wear shirts with holes in the collar and grease stains on your pants, not button downs and fitted jeans. Still, she thinks as she flips the spreads the sleeves over the ironing board, it might be best to go with a more forward approach with Dean Winchester.

“So you’re finally going to join the modern era and watch Star Wars, huh? What’s brought this change about?” She flips open the collar and presses it into stiff folds.

“I have a plan,” Cas says with a grin. “I am going to take him to Bella Notte afterwards for dinner.”

Anna shakes out the shirt, looking to see if she missed any spots, and frowns. “Cas, you know there are three Star Wars films, right? And that’s if they’re only showing the original series. It’s going to be past midnight by the time you get out of there.”

When she hands him his shirt, Cas looks completely crestfallen.

“You seriously didn’t know that? Wow, maybe _I_ should send Dean some flowers to thank him.”

The scowl reemerges on Cas’ face as he slings the shirt across his back. “This puts a rather inconvenient dent in my plans.”

“You could take him to Denny’s,” Anna suggests, helping him out with his collar. This is, at its root, her plan after all. “Twenty-four hour breakfast seems more up Dean’s alley than Bella Notte anyways.”

She stands back and Cas spins for her inspection. He looks good. Then she realizes something.

“Cas, are you wooing Dean using nothing but food?”

Cas tugs on his sleeves. “Of course. Isn’t there an idiom that states ‘the fastest way to a man’s heart is through his stomach’?”

And she’s going to let the part about finding a way to Dean’s heart slide in favor of saying, “I have got to get you some better moves.”

 

 

 

***

 

Dean is humming along to whatever classic rock track he has in the CD player and Cas is too distracted to complain about it.

When he’d come down the steps earlier at Dean’s insistent honk (he was ten minutes late), Dean had spent another healthy chunk of time staring. And not the kind of challenging stare that he gets when they’re arguing or the excited stare when he’s trying to share a joke that Cas’ doesn’t get or the insistent stare when he’s waiting for Cas to get on with it. No, those stares are directed at his eyes, whereas this one was directed, well, everywhere.

It made Castiel’s mouth go dry and his collar too tight. And not just because he was so obviously overdressed.

Dean is wearing a pair of old jeans and a faded t-shirt with the image of a slug-like creature holding onto a chain attached to the collar of a woman wearing nothing but a copper bikini. Two robots float in the sky and Castiel isn’t certain whether that's a graphic choice or if there are actually giant hovering robots in the movie.

It's obviously an old shirt, because it stretches tight across Dean’s chest and stops right at his waistband so that whenever Dean lifts his arms to wave or gesture or _drive_ , a sliver of tan skin shows just under its hemline.

That's what is distracting Castiel. Also the fact that his fourteen-year-old cousin had suggested he _proposition_ Dean.

“Not really,” Anna had stressed. “Just tease him a little. Be _friendly_.” Her eyebrow waggling had suggested something different from simple camaraderie, though.

Castiel had been in two relationships in his life. The first had been a boy named Alfie who was a year younger than him. They’d met at band camp when he was sixteen and neither of them had any idea what they were doing. There had been no propositioning. One day Alfie simply came up to him and asked if he wanted to be his boyfriend for the summer and held his hand when he said yes. They never really got much further than that.

His second relationship, if if even counted as such, was with a girl named Meg. She was an exchange student from Georgia last year. There hadn’t been much propositioning then either. They had been discussing a paper on ethnography of Amazon natives when she had shoved her tongue into his mouth and pushed him up against the wall by his locker. Not much came of that relationship, though he did find a dead fish, courtesy of Dean, tucked in his gym bag the next day.

“Just bat your eyes and lick your lips,” Anna said, demonstrating in the foyer as he tied his shoelaces. “You don’t have to do much.”

“Do your parents know that you know how to do this?” he had asked, concerned.

Anna rolled her eyes at him. “If you watched even one rom com, you’d know this too, assbutt. Now get out of here, you crazy kid.”

Castiel tries it now, running his tongue along his bottom lip, except when he looks over, Dean has his eyes locked on the road.

At the next stop light, when Dean turns to say something, Castiel bats his eyes furiously.

“Cas,” Dean says, “is something wrong with your eyes?”

“I,” Castiel swallows, “they’re a little dry.”

“Check in the glovebox. There’s a first aid kit in there. Might have some eye drops.”

The light turns green and Castiel gives up. Anna may have disapproved, but food had been working so far, so why should he change tactics?

They go to Denny’s after the third movie. This, at least, he knows how to do.

“So what’d you think?” Dean asks eagerly, hands splayed on top of his menu.

“It was loud,” Castiel says, looking over Denny’s offerings of pancakes and meat products. “And smelly.”

“Not of the theatre, Cas,” Dean groans. “The movie. Star Wars. The galaxy far, far away.”

“Why do these item names all end with the word ‘slam’?” Cas mutters to himself as he reads.

“Cas!” Dean’s hand comes down on the menu, slapping it out of Castiel’s hands and onto the table. Two green eyes laugh at him from across the table. “Come on, man. You have to think _something_ about the movies. Or at least the one you were actually awake for.”

“Doesn’t that say enough about my thoughts on the Star Wars?” Cas scowls and rubs at his face. His cheek has been itchy ever since he woke up with his face smashed against Dean’s shoulder and the end credits rolling on the screen.

“You can’t seriously be telling me you thought it was boring. Even people who don’t get it don’t think it’s boring!”

Castiel sighs and folds his hands. “The setting was intriguing, even if the framework of good versus evil is rather commonplace. The dynamic between the humans and the robots brings up a fairly interesting question about sentience and slavery.”

Dean grimaces. “Why do I have a feeling that was the bread on this compliment sandwich? Okay,” Dean says, taking a deep breath and setting his shoulders. “I’m ready. Give it to me. Give me the prosciutto and mozzarella and fresh basil insides.”

Cas can’t help a quiet laugh and marvels that Dean remembers the first sandwich he made for him nearly two weeks ago. “Are you certain you wish to hear me disparage your favorite movie?”

“Since Star Wars isn’t my favorite movie, that won’t be a problem. And what George Lucas did with the new movies is infinitely worse than anything you can say.”

Dean looks at him expectantly, and still Cas can’t bring himself to say all the little nitpicky things he managed to notice over the two and a half hours during which he was actually awake. So when he opens his mouth, all that comes out, is “the special effects were terrible.”

Dean sits back in disbelief. “Wow, Cas. That’s,” he huffs a laugh. “That’s disappointing is what that is. I was expecting so much more.”

Cas is stopped from replying when the waitress walks up to their table, tired-eyed and drooping where she stands.

“You two ready to order?”

“No,” Castiel says, scratching his cheek and looking down at his abandoned menu, but before he can read a single word, it’s swiped out from under his hands.

“We’ll have two original grand slams, but swap the sausage for hash browns,” Dean tells their waitress.

“I like sausage,” Castiel protests, only a little miffed that Dean is ordering for them both.

“And an order of sausage,” Dean says slowly, smirking at Cas the entire time.

“Thank you,” Cas tells the waitress after she rattles their order back at them.

Dean leans back, smiles and starts talking about an archaeologist who fights Nazis and Sam’s idea for the science fair and the book they’re reading for AP Lit.

Cas organizes the syrups and invites Dean to the aquarium next weekend and forgets the original reason he’s there.

 

 

 

***

 

Eating pancakes with Cas at one in the morning is weird. It’s not the fact that it’s way past both their curfews, or that Cas is a 24-hour breakfast virgin, or that no one’s bothered to point out the duck Dean drew on Cas’ cheek while he was sleeping (a dick would get stares and sniggers but a duck can fly under the radar until Cas looks in a mirror).

No, it’s weird because Dean keeps slipping. Cas is still a snarky little shit with a completely deadpan delivery, but instead of finding him infuriating, Dean is starting to laugh before snarking right back. And those moments are as confusing as hell.

He isn’t supposed be enjoying this. This, the movies and the meal, this isn’t two buddies hanging out. This is two competitors locked in a dangerous game of kindness chicken. And it’s starting to get out of hand.

When he admitted the closest he’s ever gotten to a live shark is the fish on his windowsill, Cas insisted that they drive up to the city the next weekend to visit the aquarium. Cas is backing him into a corner and there’s no way to go but up.

Which is fine. Dean has enough money saved up to buy a student ticket and he can pack a lunch to avoid paying the ludicrous prices those kind of places always charge for food. Hell, he probably even has enough to bring Sam along, too. And he can work a couple hours every day during the week to make up for the time lost at the salvage yard.

No, none of that’s the issue. The problem is what to do after.

How do you beat a day trip into the city?

Dean can’t let Cas win with _the aquarium_ , especially since Dean still hasn’t managed to figure out who’s taking Cas to prom and how to steal him away from them. No, Dean needs to come up with something brilliant, something that Cas can’t beat.

The check comes at the same time Cas returns from the bathroom. Before Dean can grab his wallet, Cas slaps down a twenty and brings the billfold up to the register.

“Hey!” Dean starts to protest, but then he remembers the aquarium and shuts his mouth until they’re back in the car, the _Camry_ for god’s sake.

“Money is off limits,” Dean grouses as Cas shuts the passenger side door.

“What?” Cas asks, clearly confused.

“You don’t get to win by paying for everything. In case you’ve forgotten, between the two of us, I’m the one with a job.”

“I’m not-” Castiel says, frowning, “I picked the restaurant. The rules state that the one who picks the restaurant has to pay.”

“What rules?”

The light from the Denny’s sign bathes them both in a yellow glow, but still, Dean can tell that Cas is blushing.

“Anna’s rules.” Cas sits stiffly and stares straight ahead. “For dating.”

“Your fourteen-year-old cousin has rules for dating. That you’re following.” Dean thinks about it for all of a second before he bursts out laughing. “Oh man, I feel so bad for Sammy right now. Has she even dated anyone before?”

Cas scowls at the Denny’s front window. “She claims to have learned from watching romantic comedies. Since you put so much stock in Star Wars, I’d expect you to understand.”

“I _like_ Star Wars, but that doesn’t mean I go around trying to move things with my mind or blowing up government buildings.” His sides are starting to hurt from the uncontrollable shaking of his diaphragm.

“Are you telling me you’ve never attempted to ‘use the Force’?” Cas says, side-eying Dean with disbelief.

“Okay, okay,” he says, taking a few deep breaths. “Fine. You got me. I get where Anna’s coming from. What’s your excuse?”

Dean doesn’t know what he’s expecting. Maybe a citation to some scientific article about how human pheromones dictate the financial distribution of funds for courting. What he gets is Cas shifting uncomfortably as he fiddles with the strap of his seatbelt.

“Oh come on, I know you’ve dated before. If you wanted to keep it a secret, you shouldn’t have let Meg tongue-fuck you against my locker.”

“Your powers of assumption are extraordinary, Dean. Am I to assume, then, that you’ve _dated_ every single person you’ve been caught with?”

Dean winces, a forced a smile on his face as he starts the car. Somewhere along the line he’d developed a reputation. It started out as rumors, stemming from the one time he made out with Cassie Robinson in the janitor’s closet in middle school and got caught. The second time he was found in a closet, he was actually looking to steal some sulfuric acid to unclog some drains at home. That wasn’t something he wanted to fess up to, so he just let everyone think there was some guy or girl who didn’t want to come forward. It was the thievery that prompted them to lock the custodial closets after that.

By then, it was too late to stop the rumor mill, so instead of fighting it, Dean took ownership of his own legend. Guys and girls would come to him like pilgrims to a sacred site, looking for that bad boy fling or trying to convince him one gender was better than the next. And he took it. He took it all. He liked the closeness, the feeling of being wanted, the flash bang heat when they were in the moment. He was easy and he was proud of it.

But when Cas says as much, it hits him in the middle of the chest. Not shame. He isn’t embarrassed. He just doesn’t want that to be the image Cas holds in his head. Cas always wants to know the truth about things, and this is uncomfortably close to a lie.

They drive in silence along the empty county roads that lead from one suburban township to the next. The car rumbles gently under them, not the comforting growl of a V8 engine, but the whisper of rubber over uneven roads.

Five minutes later, no one has said anything and Dean wonders if Cas is still waiting for an answer or if he’s forgotten his question in the first place.

“I um,” Dean starts, checking to see Cas’ reaction, but when all he gets is a curious stare, he changes track. “I think Sam would get a kick out of the aquarium. And Anna can come along, too. Save some gas money if we all go together, you know?”

“Oh,” Cas says flatly and turns back towards the road.

“I mean, if you’re not okay-”

“No!” Cas nearly shouts. “Anna loves the aquarium. Her knowledge of marine life will simply highlight how uninformed _you_ are about the natural world. It should be quite amusing.”

“Are you saying that Anna is an even bigger know-it-all than you are? I don’t believe it,” Dean says with a snort. This antagonistic rhythm between them is familiar.

“Yes, well, luckily your belief isn’t necessary to make something true.”

“Really? I thought faith was the most important thing to you people.”

“You people? You speak of religion like a whole new set of genetic material.”

“Have you seen some of the zealots out there? I’d be ashamed to be the same species.”

And so on and so forth they went until Dean pulled up to the front of Castiel’s house. His parents had left the porch light on even though the house itself was dark.

“Bye,” Dean says drily, feeling like it’s not enough, that there should be more. But Cas just gives him a little wave and steps out of the car.

Ten minutes later, Dean gets a text.

_You asshole!_

Another five minutes pass and he gets a second one detailing every single bit of the A New Hope that rubbed Cas the wrong way.

When Cas is still sporting a half-faded duck on this cheek come Monday morning, Dean has a smile on his face all day.

 

 

 

***

 

“Hey Uriel,” Sam says as he drops down onto the rug to pet the rabbit. Uriel must be asleep, because he usually hops under Anna’s bed when Sam tries to get near him. Still, Sam tries. He doesn’t want to make Anna choose between her bunny and her boyfriend.

Anna comes up the stairs five minutes later with tea and muffins.

“You want to go to the aquarium next weekend? Dean invited us along.”

“And crash the big epic second date?” Anna laughs as she sets down the tray.

“I think Dean is starting to freak out. Having us as a buffer might keep him from ruining this whole thing.”

“Why do you think he’s freaking out?” Anna lifts the lid of her teapot and pours some leaves into the filter to let it steep as they talk.

“Well, for one thing he took the Camry back to Bobby’s place. And then he looked like he was about to cry when we had pizza for dinner yesterday. The bag lunches are really getting to him.”

“Wow,” Anna says, handing Sam a muffin and a cup of tea. “That’s kind of sad.”

“Tell me about it.” Sam loves studying at Anna’s place and tea is just one of the many reasons. It smells like apricots and jasmine and Dean would mock the living daylights out of him if he tried to bring any home. “How’s Cas holding up?”

“Pretty good, but I think that’s mostly because he has no idea what’s going on.” Anna pushes Uriel back as he sniffs at the crumbs falling onto the floor. “It also helps that Dean is still being a dick. Apparently your brother drew a duck on his face with permanent marker during their date Friday night.”

Sam laughs and munches on his snack. “I’m so glad we didn’t go through all that to get together.”

“That’s because we’re smarter.”

Sam’s entire face heats up when Anna leans over to plant a kiss on his cheek.

“So do you think our work is done?” he manages without stuttering, even as he bites his lip and avoids Anna’s piercing eyes.

“Meddling, you mean?”

“Mhm.” After all, Cas has already agreed to chaperone the dance and Dean is well on his way to getting suckered into a real relationship.

“I’d say yes, but with those two? You never know. Let’s see what happens at the aquarium.”

“So you’ll go?” Sam looks up hopefully at Anna who rolls her eyes and gives him a big hug.

“Yeah, you big sap. We’re going to the aquarium.”

 

 

 

***

 

Anna’s been coming to the aquarium at least twice a year for as long as she can remember. The summer she was seven, she fell in love with a manta ray and cried every weekend until her parents drove her down to the city. At this point, she can probably give the tour better than their paid guide.

So instead of paying attention to the video about harbor seals that has her boyfriend so enthralled, Anna observes the stuttered mating habits of the Winchestera Deanus and the Novakius Castiellus, a far more interesting prospect.

They’ve got big goofy smiles on their face, even though she’s pretty sure they’re bickering again, and they’ve been standing shoulder to shoulder ever since they got out of the car. It’s embarrassing really, but neither of them seem to notice.

The doubt and hesitation that Sam reported when she climbed into the car that morning have completely vanished. Maybe it’ll pop back up again afterwards, but during the date, Dean’s so focused on Cas that a wild elephant could run through the tidepool room without him noticing.

Cas, on the other hand, is harder to read, but that’s nothing new. Still, Anna practically grew up with him, so she catches the nuances in his facial expressions that tell her he’s just as gone as Dean is. Not to mention the fact that he packed an entire picnic lunch for them to share even though she knows he would rather go downtown and eat at a proper restaurant.

And now Cas has agreed to tutor Dean in Spanish for the upcoming AP test and Dean has convinced Cas to go running with him in the mornings.

They’re complete fools.

“Oh my god, look at that turtle!” Sam calls excitedly from the side of the giant tank.

“That’s a green sea turtle,” she says and points at another, even larger turtle, “and that’s a leatherback.”

“I’ve never seen turtles this big before,” Sam whispers with wide eyes and slack jaw, and Anna can’t help but smile.

“Come on,” she says, taking his hand. “There’s a tunnel that lets you go through the tank. It’s like being underwater!”

“Seriously?” Sam says as he pulls ahead eagerly. “I love this place!”

 

 

 

***

 

Dean jogs in place as he waits for Cas to catch his breath, which might take a while given that the other boy is curled up on his side in the grass. Maybe a five-mile run wasn’t the best thing to start with.

“Why?” Cas wheezes.

“Why what?”

“Why do people run?”

“It’s good for you.”

“It’s torture,” Cas moans, rolling over onto his back.

“Big baby,” Dean laughs, hopping on and off the curb. “Just keep at it and you’ll be doing five miles without breaking a sweat.”

“That doesn't sound healthy,” Cas gasps.

“Eh.” Dean jogs a few circles around his fallen comrade. “Get up. We’ve got one and a half more miles to go.”

Cas answers with a whimper, but after a moment, he does manage to sit up and fix Dean with a calculating glare.

“I’ll wait here and you can come pick me up with the car.”

“Nope.” Dean grins as he throws in a few jumping jacks.

Cas’ eyes narrow even further. “Name your price, Winchester.”

“Fresh baked pie every day for a week.”

“Deal,” Cas agrees quickly. “But you should know that I can’t bake, so you’ll most likely be getting something less like pie and more like charcoal.”

“Ugh. No deal.” Dean circles around Cas a few more times. Cas attempts to maintain eye contact until his neck is craned all the way back and he flops back down onto the ground. And then Dean remembers.

“Tell me who asked you to prom.”

Cas squints up at him even though Dean’s shadow falls right over his face. After a minute with no response, Dean almost expects him to haul his ass off the ground and sprint all the way to school, when Cas sighs and lets his head fall to one side.

“Anna.”

“What?” Dean stops in place, arms still crooked at his side.

“Anna asked me to go as a chaperone.”

“You fucking liar!” Dean says, anger and relief warring inside him. It feels like a weight’s been lifted off his shoulders, the ten-ton anvil of curiosities that’s been sitting on his chest for weeks, but at the same time it feels like a blow to his very image of reality.

“I never said I was invited as someone’s date,” Cas says, pouting a little as Dean moves and the sun falls directly in his eyes. “Now, we had a deal. Fuera! Coge el coche!”

“Goddamnit,” Dean mutters as he heads back towards his house. Just for that, he’s going to come back in the Impala.

 

 

 

***

 

“This is getting out of hand,” Anna says, staring up at her ceiling.

“It’s because they’re fighting,” Sam answers sagely. It’s nothing she doesn’t already know.

They’re lying side by side on her bed, legs dangling off the edge, both a little shell-shocked by the newest developments in the Dean-and-Cas game. Anna never thought this would end up affecting her life this much, but apparently the two of them were growing too big to remain self-contained.

“Dean came over for _Game Night_ ,” she whispers at her glow-in-the-dark stars which are a grayish green in the light. “And he played _charades_. And the grown-ups _liked_ him. Even my dad. My dad doesn’t even like _you_.”

“Yeah,” Sam says airily, “thanks for reminding me. Jesus, and Cas is coming over for dinner on Friday. My dad is going to be home. Cas is going to meet _my dad_. My dad is going to kill him.”

“Don’t say that,” Anna groans, laughing. She’s heard plenty of stories about Mr. Winchester, some good, some bad, mostly terrifying. He’s an ex-marine and she’s using her cousin to test the waters. If Castiel Novak can survive the gauntlet by Winchester patriarch, then she’ll probably charm his pants off.

“And Dean is _singing_ ,” Sam continues. She can hear the awe in his voice. “In front of real, live _people_. We’re going to be at the nursing home on Sunday. I don’t care if we have to sneak in through the chimney. I am _not_ missing this performance.”

Anna giggles, remembering the last time she witnessed her cousin playing piano for the retirees at Golden Oaks. Someone had requested a show-tune and asked that he sing it for them. It wasn’t pretty. Cas’ voice is more suited for threatening bodily harm than singing about the zinging of heartstrings.

“I have no idea how Cas got him to do it. I mean, Dean won’t even play the guitar in front of _me_.”

“I think they’ve both decided that the first one to say ‘no’ loses. And now that they’re fighting, the requests just get more and more outlandish. Apparently Cas is helping Dean clean out the gutters on your house over the weekend.”

“And Dean’s letting him borrow the Camry for a chess tournament next week.”

“Geez.” Anna counts up the favors in her head. “So Dean is up by one?”

“I don’t know. Dean’s borrowing Cas’ dress shoes for an interview, but I don’t remember if they agreed on that before or after the car.”

“Car definitely beats shoes.”

“But shoes still count if they came first.”

Anna nods, wondering when they came up with a scoring system for someone else’s love life. “Hey,” she says, lifting herself up on one elbow to peer down at Sam. “Do _you_ want to come over for Game Night?”

When he doesn’t say anything at first, she starts to get a little nervous, unsure. “I mean it’s dumb all around and the food usually sucks, and I know my dad doesn’t like you that much, but maybe if you played something stupid like Trivial Pursuit he’d warm up to you and-”

Sam’s hand claps over her mouth, shutting her up effectively. He smiles his easy puppy grin that makes her relax as well when he says, “Yeah, Anna. I’ll come to Game Night.”

 

 

 

***

 

“Thanks for this, Cas,” Dean says, completely frazzled as he steps into the Novak home.

“Dean, you’re letting me borrow your car,” Cas says, voice muffled as he rummages through the hallway closet. “I trust you with a pair of shoes.”

Dean nods, genuinely grateful as Cas hands over the shoebox, even if it’s simply equal exchange. He has his college interview with Brown tomorrow and the bottoms of his dad’s old leather shoes fell out last week. Benny’s feet are surprisingly small and Victor, well, it had just been easier to ask Cas yesterday as they were driving to school.

“I’ll get them back to you tomorrow night,” he promises.

“Dean,” Cas says, stopping him. “Is this your last interview?”

Dean shuffles his feet in the doorway. “No. I’ve got CMU and KU next week.”

“Then keep them until then.”

“Don’t you need them?”

“I’ve got another pair in black. I’ll be fine,” Cas says, earnest. There’s no disdain on his face, no sneer or smirk or sarcastic eyebrow motions. It’s just Cas, hair rumpled like it always is, giant sweater hanging off his shoulders, and Dean doesn’t know why this is the right moment to ask, but it is.

“Hey, Cas,” he says, “you want to go to prom?”

A confused frown settles over his face. “I’m already going. You know this.”

“No, I mean, I know. As Anna’s chaperone. I mean do you want to go with me?”

Cas’ eyes widen, then narrow again into dark blue slits. And Dean’s chest clenches when Cas glances down at the shoes and then at the car, calculating, before he nods his head slowly. “Yes.”

“Okay,” he says, trying to act nonchalant, “cool. Thanks again for the shoes.”

Dean turns and walks calmly to the car, stomach sunk low in a haze of mild disappointment. This was the whole point. This was his moment of triumph. So why does he feel like shit?

 

 

 

***

 

It would be funny if Sam wasn’t sitting right there. As it is, he feels like an ant stuck between two rare earth magnets that threaten to slam together at any minute.

His father is only two beers in, so he’s still pretty formidable, and Cas has his whole Man of Steel routine going on. Thing is, Sam can’t tell if his dad likes Cas or not. They haven’t said ten words to each other since the obligatory introductions at the door. Dean, of course, is ignoring the tension in favoring of shovelling spaghetti into his face.

“Castiel volunteers at the nursing home on Sundays,” Sam says, doing the job that _should_ be Dean’s.

“That’s good. A strong community builds strong people,” his dad grunts before taking a swig of beer.

“Yes,” Cas agrees.

And that’s it. Silence except the gross slurping noises coming from Dean. Sam would kick him under the table, but they’re too far apart and he’d have to slide half off his chair to reach. This is _his_ boyfriend, not Sam’s. He should be the one talking Cas up.

It’s like Dean doesn’t even notice how weird it is at the table.

Sam would bring up school or the Impala or his dad’s last job except they’ve already gone over all that two days ago. So he falls back on the one thing he can always count on.

“So Anna’s stuck at Game Night by herself, huh?” he asks Cas as he snags another meatball.

“The games usually do not start until after eight, so I’ll be home by then.”

“Oh.” Sam sneaks a glance at his father to see him paying more attention to the ingredients list on his beer bottle than the conversation.

Sam gives up. He can eat in silence just as well as the rest of his family. Cas fits right in with that aspect.

Later, after Cas has gone home and his dad has left for a night of poker and whiskey at Bobby’s, Sam pushes Dean’s feet of the couch to make room for himself.

“Well that sucked,” he says, sinking into the cushions.

“What?” Dean asks, laying his car magazine down on his chest.

“Dinner? I mean, I expected Dad to at least interrogate Cas or something, but they didn’t talk at all.”

“Eh,” Dean sniffs, “I mean, if Dad wants to know something about Cas, he can probably find out himself. He is a PI, you know.”

“But don’t you want him to _like_ Cas? Get to know him a little?”

“Why would I want that?”

Sam gapes at his brother, because seriously? And that’s not Dean’s lying face either. That’s genuine bewilderment mixed with a little ‘my brother is weird.’

“Because!” Sam says before realizing it doesn’t help at all. “I mean, don’t you care what Dad thinks about Cas? He’s your. I mean, you and Cas are-”

Except they’re not. Cas’ introduction at the door had been “Dad, this is Cas. He has the locker next to mine. Cas, this is my dad.”

At the time, Sam had been embarrassed on his brother’s behalf, because who introduces someone as the kid with the locker next to yours? Even if he wasn’t ready to go with ‘boyfriend’ he could have at least referred to Cas as a ‘friend.’ As it is, their dad probably thinks it weird that Dean invited Cas to dinner at all, much less hold any interest in finding out who Cas is.

Sam despairs for his entire family. Dean doesn’t notice his anguish.

His brother props the magazine back onto his stomach and sticks his feet straight into Sam’s lap. A glossy, waxed woman sitting on top of a glossy, waxed car stares forlornly at Sam from the cover.

“Do you care what Dad thinks about Anna?” Dean says offhandedly as he flips a page.

The short answer is no. Their dad could think Anna was the antichrist himself and that wouldn’t change how Sam felt about her. The long answer is still no, except he would like his dad to get along with his girlfriend. Dean’s approval means about a thousand time more than their dad’s but it’d still be nice to have his support.

But Dean’s always put more stock into their dad’s opinion than Sam ever has.

“You seriously wouldn’t care if dad hated Cas?” Sam says, just to test Dean’s reaction.

“Dude, Dad wouldn’t hate Cas. No one _hates_ Cas.” The magazine rustles as Dean flips another page.

“Benny hates Cas.”

“Only because Cas hates him.”

Sam starts. That’s new information. As far as he knew, the only things Cas hated were along the lines of slavery and rape.

“Why does Cas hate Benny?” he asks cautiously.

Dean shrugs, his entire torso rising and falling with his shoulders. “Hell if I know.”

“Hunh.” Sam considers turning on the tv, but he doesn’t feel like watching attractive people cry about babies and jobs and airplane crashes, so he ends up staring at the blank screen instead. Well, at least his brother admitted in a roundabout way that _he_ didn’t hate Cas. Baby steps.

 

 

 

***

 

“Hey, Benny,” Dean says one day during physics lab as they worked on their egg-safe bottle rocket.

“Yeah, brother?” Benny drawls, carefully knotting his string into the parachute edge.

“Why do you hate Cas?”

Dean tapes over a hole, keeping the plastic from tearing. Their first two parachutes are mangled messes and he isn’t going to be taking any chances with this one. When Benny doesn’t answer, he assumes he’s just engrossed in his own side of the chute, but when he looks up, his friend is staring a him, mouth tilted down in conflict.

“You really want to know?” Benny asks after a moment of uncomfortable staring.

“Yeah. I mean, you’re my best friend. I kind of want to know if something bad happened between the two of you. Hell, I gripe to you about every prank he’s ever pulled on me.”

Benny sighs and reaches up to adjust a hat that isn’t there, hand awkwardly brushing over his forehead. “Naw, there ain’t no bad blood ‘tween us.”

“Then how come you two don’t get along?”

“I ever tell you ‘bout Andrea?” Benny asks, cutting himself another piece of string.

“Yeah,” Dean says, trying to remember exactly how that conversation had gone. “She was your neighbor back in Louisiana, right?”

“Yep,” Benny confirms. “Lived next to that girl from the day she was born to the day we moved up north. I was in love with her for ‘bout as long.”

“Seriously?” Dean snorts. “Weren’t you eleven when you moved?”

“Hey,” Benny says sternly. “Young hearts love pure. That’s why your first love’ll stick with you ‘til the day you die.”

“Alright, alright,” Dean says, holding his hands up in surrender. “So you were in pure, unblemished, virginal love with this girl. What about it?”

“That girl promised me she’d write me every day when I left. You should have seen her, Dean. Tears in her big brown eyes, standing on her porch, waving me goodbye.” Benny paused, shaking his head with a rueful smile hanging off his lips.

“Did she? Write?”

“Every day,” Benny drawls, but the smile disappears. “For two years, she prattled on about everything from her new phone to her nightmares to her mother’s dinner parties. I always thought one day I’d find her again, have my self a big romantic love story. My mama used to tell me those bedtime stories ‘bout the dashing heroes fighting dragons to get to their girl. Me? All I had to fight was time. Turns out, Dean, that’s all it took to do me in.”

“What happened?” Dean asks, worried. Benny’s always been so laid back and easygoing that sadness looks a hundred times worse on his face.

“She found herself another beau is what happened,” Benny states, shaking out his shoulders, plastic rustling in his hands. “Got me right in the gut when I read those words.”

“But you’re okay,” Dean insists. “I mean, you got Lenore now.”

“Exactly,” Benny says, his familiar, easy smile back on his face. “Now, me and Lenore? Easy as pie from day one. You know what I learned?”

“What?”

“The good ones don’t wanna keep you on a leash for years while they run free as a bird. If a girl,” Benny says, then emphasizes, “or a _guy_ makes you jump through a dozen hoops just to hold their hand? They’re just looking for a pet, not a partner.”

Dean pauses in the middle of threading another string, stunned. “Hold on,” he says, unsure. “What’s that got to do with Cas?”

Benny looks at him with concern. “You really don’t get it? That boy’s been playing you like a fiddle.”

“Cas and I aren’t like that,” Dean says automatically. They’re not. It’s not like he’s been pining after the nerdy blue-eyed boy for four years. Maybe at first Dean had wanted to be friends. They lived two streets apart and were the same age, so it made sense. In fact, they had been friends his first summer here. Then, when the school year started, Cas grew distant, always too busy with his real friends to spend any time with someone like Dean. And he was okay with that. He started dating Cassie, met Jo and Victor, joined the baseball team after his dad asked about sports, started lending a hand at the scrapyard, and forgot about Cas until the day he tripped in art class and spilled a gallon of papier mache over Cas’ backpack. And Cas’ jacket. And Cas’ shoes. Retaliation and mule-headedness has brought them to today. “We’re not,” Dean repeats emphatically.

“Now I ain’t saying there’s anything romantic going on between the two of you,” Benny says calmly, “but Cas has been nothing but a no-good maudit bibette and you’re still wasting half your free time on him.”

“It’s war!” Dean protests. “I can’t just let him win.” Just the thought of forfeiting pisses Dean off. There is no way he’s just going to lay down arms and go softly into the night.

“You better watch what you’re doing, brother,” Benny says.

For a moment, he thinks he’s talking about Cas again, but a pointed glance downward directs his attention to a large tear running from his newest hole towards the center of their chute.

“Ah, shit,” Dean spits, reaching for the tape.

“Rate we’re going, this thing’s gonna be ‘bout half-tape, half plastic,” Benny says blithely.

“You think we should just start a new one?” Dean asks hopefully.

Benny sighs. “Nah, tape’s made of plastic too, right? If Mister Devereaux asks, we’ll just say it gives it character.”

 

 

 

***

 

Castiel is no longer certain what he’s doing. At some point, he’s stopped wanting Dean to say no. At some point, he actually started enjoying the time he spent with Dean. Or maybe he always had since the first summer Dean showed up in town, before he started blowing Castiel off for girls like Robin, then Lisa, then Cassie. If he grows attached, he can’t imagine the outcome being any different.

He comes to this realization on a Sunday afternoon as he sits at a piano bench next to Miss Sheila. He’s showing her the F major chord again when she leans over and says, “He’s very sweet, Castiel, and he’s almost as pretty as you are, but next time? Don’t take your boy to a nursing home. Go dancing and eat somewhere nice, like Bella Notte.”

“I tried, once, but the movie ended far later than I expected, so we ate at Denny’s,” he tells her.

Miss Sheila sighs and shakes her head at him, white locks rustling as she moves. “Sweetie, breakfast is only romantic in the morning.”

He’s about to protest that he isn’t attempting romance, nor are they dating, but there is no way to explain that convincingly. From an outside perspective, they, in nearly every way, are dating.

He makes Dean lunch every day except Tuesdays, burger and pie day at the cafeteria, and Dean drives him to school just as often. They run together and study together and go out every Saturday. He’s even met Dean’s father, even though ‘met’ may be too strong a term. Nearly all his spare time is spent with the other boy and he’s surprised to say, he doesn’t particularly mind.

The only thing missing is a level of physical intimacy, but there are hints, even, of that. Dean’s hand on the small of his back as he ushers him forward. Cas using Dean’s shoulder as a crutch to limp the last half mile home. Dean grabbing his wrist during the climax of a film. Cas brushing leaves out of Dean’s hair. Each moment waiting for the other to pull away first and both too stubborn to balk. Except recently, Cas has been leaning into his touch, hoarding Dean’s warmth as they sit shoulder to shoulder on the couch.

They’re dating except they’re not. To Dean, this is all just a game, but Castiel isn’t sure if he’s playing anymore. Maybe he should simply forfeit. This isn’t fair to either of them. Castiel would be taking advantage of Dean if he lets this go on, and the longer the game persists, the more it’ll hurt when it’s over.

“Dude, that is just _lazy_ ,” Dean says plopping down on the bench next to him and setting down his guitar by his side. “You seriously need some new material if half your set is just scales.”

Cas looks down at his hands, still poised over middle C, and realizes he’s been playing through the major scales since before Sheila got up and left him to his thoughts.

“No one’s complaining,” Cas says, taking a look around the room. Sam and Anna are helping out at the crafts table, which, honestly, is more letting Miss Agnes teach them how to knit than actually aiding anyone. There are a few retirees still in the music room, but they’re talking amongst themselves and, in one case, napping.

“Hey, so,” Dean says, tapping idly on a low G, “since the Spanish AP test is on Thursday, could we throw in an extra study session on Wednesday? I know you’ve got chess and I’ve got practice, but I can pick you up after dinner.”

Oh right, the Spanish test. Dean knows enough now to get a five, but for some reason he has this notion in his head that he’s going to fail. Even now, Dean’s foot is jittering nervously as he fiddles with the piano keys. No, this would not be the right time to end their fake relationship. It can wait until next weekend. Saturday, before they leave for the baseball game. Sam would most likely appreciate the ticket more than he would anyways.

When he agrees to Wednesday, Dean gives him a blindingly handsome smile and for a moment, Cas even thinks he’s about to hug him, but he gets a slap on the back instead. He can’t bring himself to smile back.

 

 

 

***

 

“Code Red! Code Red!” Sam hisses into his cell as soons as Anna picks up. “Rhonda Hurley came over with her car so Dean can _check out her engine_ and you know what that means. They’re in the driveway _right now_ and, shush, wait I think I can hear what they’re saying.”

Sam presses his phone against his chest as he all but leans out of his second-floor bedroom window. Rhonda drives a pink Civic, which really isn’t going to do her any favors as far as Dean is concerned, but she’s also wearing cut-offs so short that Sam is starting to doubt whether or not she wears underwear. Her chest is another tick in the plus column and she isn’t afraid to flaunt it. The way she’s leaning over the hood, even Sam would have a hard time maintaining eye contact.

All Sam can see is the back of Dean’s head, but he knows his brother well enough to picture his cocky grin and wandering eye. After a moment, Rhonda circles into the driver’s seat and Dean stands back with his hands on his hips.

The engine turns over easily enough, but the clanking noise is so loud that even Sam can hear it now that he has his window open.

“Okay,” he whispers into the phone. “She actually does have engine problems, so this might just be a Code Orange. Oh wait, they’re talking again. Be right back.”

He puts his phone back down and listens eagerly to what’s going on in the driveway.

Dean says something about spark plugs before he disappears into the garage. It’s a bad sign that Rhonda steps out of her car and follows him. There is no reason she needs to be inside their garage when Dean is probably just getting the toolbox.

Dean better not try anything, especially while Sam is right upstairs. Walking in on his brother twice was two times too many in Sam’s book.

But both of them come out of the garage not a minute later, enough time for a quick peck maybe, but nothing sordid. Rhonda hops back in the car and Dean does, well, something Sam can’t see under the hood. When it starts again, the clunking is still there, just slightly different, like it’s pointed in another direction.

“You’re going to have to bring this to the Salvage Yard,” he hears Dean call out loud and clear, no longer muffled by the hood. “I don’t have the parts here.”

Rhonda’s voice is higher, harder to hear from a distance, but it sounds like resignation and assent. When she drives off with a look of disappointment on her face, Sam isn’t sure whether it’s because of Dean’s rejection or the car’s engine.

“False alarm,” he announces into the phone as he sits back down in his desk chair. “I think Dean turned her down. Happened in the garage, though, so I couldn’t see.”

There’s silence on the other end, and Sam thinks for a moment that Anna may have hung up on him before a deep, gravelly voice answers.

“Anna’s taking a shower right now. She spilled curry all over herself during dinner.”

Oh, shit. Friday means bad take-out and lame party games. This week, it’s the Novaks’ turn to host, so Sam was going to wait a week until it cycled back to the Miltons. And apparently Castiel was the one on the other end this whole time.

Sam wants to kick himself but first he babbles something incoherent into the phone before hanging up.

Anna is going to kill him.

 

 

 

***

 

“Oh come on! That was way out of the box!” Dean shouts in tandem with about five hundred other enraged fans.

Castiel thinks that the pitch looked like it went straight over the plate, but he has a strong enough sense of self-preservation not to voice his thoughts out loud. The man sitting on his left is at least three hundred pounds and the red on his face isn’t only from the paint. Not to mention Dean who is chewing on his hotdog like it had insulted Mary Winchester herself.

“Can you believe this ump?” Dean asks and Castiel hopes that it’s a rhetorical question because he doesn’t know which is the safe answer.

The college game is much tenser than the high school games. No one, for example, would threaten to kill the visiting team’s pitcher for striking out the player at bat at the diamond behind the school. Here, it seems, bodily harm is almost a given.

It all serves to highlight one simple fact. He shouldn’t be here. He doesn’t _belong_ here. Suffering through hour-long activities is something you do for a partner, not a mildly antagonistic acquaintance.

Castiel suffered a moment of weakness. For once, Dean had actually come up to his door instead of waiting in the driveway. He presented Cas with a bright red baseball cap and an oversized foam finger, green eyes bright and sunlight glinting gold off his hair. That, in conjunction with the phone call from Sam a day earlier, had been enough to break his resolve long enough to see him seated in the blustery stands at the state college baseball stadium thirty minutes away.

But now in the harsh light of a hundred megawatt light bulbs, Castiel can clearly see the error of his ways. Even if Dean had turned down Rhonda’s advances, which even Sam had been uncertain of, there’s no reason to think he did so because of Castiel. For all he knows, Dean could have another guy or girl already. Or maybe he hadn’t turned her down at all. Maybe they had simply arranged to meet at a different time and place. They _had_ arranged to meet at a different time and place: later at the Salvage Yard. But Dean wouldn’t risk his job by doing something like _that_ at work.

It was foolish to think otherwise. The cold truth is that he’s lying to himself and using Dean for his _joie de vivre_. He should be spending his time with his real friends. Balthazar even complained, although indirectly, that he never saw Castiel outside of school and orchestra anymore.

He spends the rest of the game with a cold pit in his stomach and his hands clasped tightly in his lap. He doesn’t let himself look at Dean or speak to Dean or do anything that’ll compromise his ability to end this. Even as they file out of the stadium and into the parking lot, Castiel keeps his eyes fixed firmly on the ground in front of his feet.

Only when they’re safely seated in the car does he look up, and then only to stare straight out the window.

“Dean,” he says, fighting to keep his voice steady, “I can’t do this anymore.”

“No kidding,” Dean snorts as he turns the key in the ignition. “If you didn’t like baseball you should have just said so. We could have done something else. I just figured you did since you’re there at almost every home game.”

Cas snaps his head to the side, staring at Dean’s profile as they pull onto the road. “You noticed?”

“Kind of hard not to,” Dean says with a shrug.

“You never said anything.”

“What was I going to say? It’s not like it’s a private field and hey, our team’s awesome. I’d want to watch us play, too.” Dean tosses a quick smirk at Cas before returning his eyes to the road. “First time I saw you there, I thought you were going to heckle me or something. I kind of wished you would, cause then I could get coach to throw you out in front of everybody. But you didn’t and after a while, and don’t laugh, it was kind of nice.”

“How could my presence possibly be nice?” Cas demands, confused. He’d always assumed that once Dean found out, he’d be subjected to an endless slew of stalker jokes. Not appreciation.

“You know, all the other guys, they’ve got family. Parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins to cheer them on in the stands. And I know Sam would go if I asked him to, but the kid’s got better things to do than stroke my ego. So I didn’t have anyone who was just there for _me_.”

The ‘except you’ hangs heavy and unsaid between them, like chain binding them together since before this ridiculous dare began.

Just because Cas doesn’t hold the same rabid fervor of the other fans, it doesn’t mean he dislikes baseball. He used to play, in fact, in middle school. He quit the year before the Winchesters moved to town in order to focus on other activities, but he’d been considering trying out for the high school team before the rest of life got in the way. That’s why he was there in the stands that first time.

But he doesn’t tell Dean. He can’t take that away from him, especially since after the first month, their rivalry _was_ what kept him in the bleachers. But he can’t admit that either, not bald-faced and outloud. To do so would be asking for something that Dean couldn’t give. Reprisal, maybe, or an admission that their time together isn’t a complete farce.

Still, it makes it more difficult to simply cut Dean off completely. He’s going to have to do this one piece at a time to ease them both out of this destructive cycle.

“I have to give a presentation in Latin as a final project. I think I’m going to work on that next Saturday,” he says.

“Oh, well,” Dean says with a frown. “I don’t really know any Latin outside of Harry Potter spells so I don’t know how much help I can be.”

“Luckily for my GPA, I won’t be relying on J. K. Rowling as source material,” he replies drily. “It’s a group presentation so Balthazar and I are going to work together.”

Dean’s jaw clenches suddenly before his face relaxes into something blank and neutral. “I doubt your GPA is happy with that decision either. I don’t see Balto being any more help than Harry Potter.”

“Dean,” Cas says with a sardonic smile, “Balthazar is president of the Latin Honor Society.”

“Why?” Dean snaps. “Is he the only member?”

Castiel sighs. He’s never understood why Dean dislikes almost every one of his friends. “Regardless, we’ll probably be working all day at his house.”

“Great,” Dean snarls, clearly upset and Cas nearly takes it all back and suggests they do something on Sunday instead, but he stops himself.

That would be taking one step forward and two steps back.

So instead he lets Dean stew and hates himself for it.

 

 

 

***

 

“We screwed up,” Sam says as soon as they make it up to her room. He’d been jittery all day at school and through their Ecology Club meeting, and now she’s about to find out why.

“This was such a bad idea,” Sam moans, pacing around the room with his hands in his hair.

Anna bends down to let Uriel out of his cage. “What was?”

“The thing with Dean and Cas!”

“Sam,” she says with her most commanding voice. “Sit down and tell me what happened.”

Sam takes his usual seat on the edge of her bed and drags his palms down his face before saying, “Dean is pissed, constantly. It’s like his bad mood has a bad mood, and he’s taking it out on everyone. He got sent home early from work yesterday because he blew up at a customer.”

So it was bad. “But why do you think it has anything to do with Cas?”

“Because _your cousin_ has been _cancelling_ on him left and right! Apparently he blew off date night to hang out with Balthazar. And then he said he hurt his ankle so now they’re not running together anymore. Yesterday, I had to stop Dean from throwing Cas’ dress shoes into a bucket of bleach.”

“Oh.” Anna cuddles Uriel in her arms and tries to process this newest development. Cas had been fine last Friday, when Sam had come over for Game Night, but then again she wasn’t paying that much attention to him when her dad and her boyfriend were in the same room.

“Yeah,” Sam says, “Oh. This was your idea, Anna. You have to fix it.”

“ _My_ idea?” Anna snaps, not believing her own ears. “Who was begging me to save the baby otters covered in oil? And who was all gung-ho about silver glitter pens in the first place?”

“I know, I know, I’m sorry,” Sam says hastily. “I’m just tired and second-hand cranky from my brother and I shouldn’t blame you for any of this.”

“Damn right you shouldn’t,” she huffs, but without any real heat. It’s hard to stay angry in the face of Sam’s puppy dog eyes. “But you’re right. We should do something. I don’t know why Cas is suddenly getting cold feet. Prom is next week.”

“I know. Dean and I are supposed to rent our tuxes on Thursday, but at this point, I don’t even know if he’s still going.”

Anna’s breath catches in her throat. No, she’s worked too hard on this to have it all fall to pieces in the final stretch. “Okay, here’s the plan. I’ll work on Cas and see why he’s chickening out. You try to get your brother to figure out _why_ he’s so upset that Cas is cancelling on him. Got it?”

“Alright,” Sam agrees with a shrug.

“That’s not what I want to hear,” she says, jumping to her feet, startling Uriel out of her arms. “Come on, Sam! This is for the whole team. Now let’s try that again. Got it, Winchester?”

Sam grins and gives her a mock salute. “Sir, yes, sir!”

 

 

 

***

 

“Dean!” Sam says, surprised. He glances at the kitchen clock to confirm that it’s only a quarter past eight. “I thought the orchestra concert ran until nine.”

“I left early,” Dean grunts as he heads towards the fridge. Sam knows something went wrong as soon as his brother pulls out of one of their dad’s Heinekens.

And lately, there’s really only one thing that puts his brother in a really foul mood. “What happened? Did you see Cas?”

“Yeah, I left after his solo,” Dean says with a small dopey smile on his lips. “He was really good.”

“Then why are you in a funk?”

Dean’s face falls again.

“I was, um, hanging out in the parking lot, since it’s such a nice night out.”

Which translates to ‘I was waiting’ since Dean is about the last person in Sam’s book to stand around smelling the roses.

“And?” he prompts.

Dean shuffles awkwardly behind one of the chairs, beer bottle tapping nervously against its back.

“ _Jo_ came out and found me.”

Sam wasn’t expecting that.

“ _Jo_ noticed I left early and _Jo_ wanted to talk to me.”

Dean’s expression grows darker and more sullen each time he says Jo’s name. Which doesn’t make sense. Jo has been like a sister to them both practically since the day they moved here. Before Benny, she was Dean’s best friend. In no world can Sam think of Jo doing anything that would make Dean this angry.

“And?” he prompts.

“And _Jo_ told me she’s had a crush on me for years.”

“Oh,” Sam says, staring blindly at a patch of wall. “Wow. I didn’t expect that.”

“Yeah, neither did I.”

Dean finally gives in and sits down with his elbows propped up and his face in one hand.

The next logical question arises like a dark cloud of doom. “So what did you do?”

Dean faceplants on the table before he even answers. “I fucked up.”

“Dean,” Sam says dangerously. “What did you do?”

Still face down, Dean mumbles, “I kissed her.”

“You _what_? Why the hell would you kiss her?”

“Because she wanted me! She saw me in the audience. She noticed I walked out. _She_ chased after me.”

All of Sam’s righteous anger disappears like a burning fuse cut away from the bomb. His original assessment was correct after all. This _is_ about Cas. But it’s all just so sad that he can’t even bring himself to gloat about being right.

“So,” Sam says, long and drawn out to give Dean time to chill out a little, “Are you and her- I mean- do you-”

“No,” Dean says with a sigh, propping his chin upon his arms. “I don’t, and Jo knows it too. She punched me in the gut for pity-kissing her.”

Sam can’t help it. He laughs. He laughs until his stomach hurts and Dean is pouting like a little kid and the entire table is shaking under his weight.

“Oh man,” he says after he regains control of his lungs. He grabs his phone and slides off his chair before turning over his shoulder and saying, “I’m going to tell Anna.”

His brother’s steps thunder after him up the stairs, but his lead is too wide and he makes it into his room before Dean even reaches the landing.

 

 

 

***

 

“I punched him for you.”

“What?” Castiel looks up from his cello case to see Jo sitting on one of the stools, her mallets swinging loosely from her hands.

“Well, I punched him mostly for me. A little for you.”

“Who?” Castiel asks, bewildered that Jo is hurting people for his sake.

“Dean.”

His entire body seizes up at the name. He saw Dean at the beginning of the concert sitting by the main door, where light from the hallway lit up the one cluster of chairs. After that, Castiel kept his gaze focused resolutely on his sheet music though he’d long since memorized the songs.

“I have no reason to want Dean harmed,” he says, ducking his head to fasten the straps on his case.

“Really?” she says flatly, like she doesn’t believe him. She should though; he’s telling the truth.

“Why do you think I want to hurt Dean?’

“Well you’ve been punishing him pretty hard for the last couple of weeks. I never figured you to be the cruel type, so Dean must have done something to deserve it.”

Castiel hauls his cello onto his back, suddenly tired, and not from the thirty pounds of added weight.

“Dean has done nothing wrong, and I am not punishing him. We have never been friends and I have simply grown tired of this charade we’ve been playing at for the last two months. It’s best that I end it now before we take it too far and someone gets hurt.”

“You mean until _you_ get hurt,” Jo says with surprising venom in her voice. When he looks up at her, still perched on the the drum box, her knuckles are white and she is glaring at him like he’s offended her personally. Maybe he has. He doesn’t know her that well.

“Excuse me?”

“You figured out that you like him a little more than you wanted to, so now you’re yanking the rug out from under him before he does the same to you, because you think _you_ have further to fall. You think he’ll take it better, but let me tell you. He isn’t. He’s a complete mess about it.”

Castiel clings onto the strap across his chest like it can protect him from Jo’s version of the truth. Their high school is big, big enough that he doesn’t have to see Dean if he doesn’t want to. They don’t have any classes together senior year. Castiel chose Latin, biology, and statistics while Dean chose Spanish, physics, and multivariable calculus. They sit on opposite sides of the cafeteria at lunch and Castiel has taken to keeping his books in the orchestra room instead of his locker.

The only time they still see each other is the drive to school, a drive that’s become eerily quiet and Castiel is left wondering why Dean still shows up on his driveway. He’s obviously angry with his stony silence and icy glare. Castiel doesn’t even hand him his lunch anymore. He simply leaves it on the seat. Whether or not Dean chooses to throw them in the trash is a mystery to him.

The false camaraderie they built has obviously disintegrated already. If Dean is upset, it isn’t about him.

“Jo, I don’t think you understand. Dean doesn’t view me as a friend. I’m sure he’d tell you as much if you asked.”

“What about you then?” she challenges. “What is Dean to you?”

Castiel bites down on his tongue, forcing himself to face the dreaded question head on. His dress shirt suddenly feels too thin, like she can see straight through it into his conflicted core.

“Dean is my classmate and occasional provocateur,” he says straightly.

“Bullshit,” she says with a sneer. “Let me tell you what you think of him. He’s a giant magnet that draws you in closer and closer and you’re afraid that if you ever do touch him, you’re going to get stuck there forever. And you’d be okay with that. Every little thing he gives you, you hoard away and you always want more. You want to take and take until there’s nothing left and all of him is in your arms except you know he never will be. There will always be someone else because that is who Dean Winchester has always been.”

Castiel shrinks further and further into himself, trying to escape because everything Jo says is true and every word hurts. But in a way, it’s a relief to hear he isn’t the only one, that there is someone else lying in this ditch.

“I’m sorry, Jo,” he says, because there is no comfort for their situation. Dean Winchester is an illness that can only be cured by time and re-exposure only makes it worse. “I didn’t know that you-”

The words get stuck in his throat. By saying what Jo feels he would be admitting that he himself has fallen prey. It is the ultimate victory for Dean, but a part of Castiel, a shamefully proud part of Castiel, doesn’t want to let him know it.

“Yeah,” Jo snorts. “No one does. Or no one _did_ , I should say.”

Cas’ eyes snap open in horror. “You told him?”

She shrugs, looking down at her hands in her lap. “We’re graduating in a month. I didn’t want to leave without saying something.”

“Oh,” Castiel says, considering. No, he would be perfectly content with maintaining his silence. Jo is one of Dean’s best friends. They have a relationship to salvage. He doesn’t. “I take it didn’t go so well?”

“I punched him didn’t I?” Jo says, her usual self-assured smirk back on her face, if only briefly.

“How did a confession lead to punching?”

“The entire time we were talking, Dean kept looking over my shoulder at the door, like he was waiting for someone else to come out.”

Castiel is only a little surprised that Dean managed to book a liaison in the middle of an orchestra concert. It’s almost entirely dark and talking is generally frowned upon, but Dean has had a lot of time to practice.

“So you punched him?”

“No. I punched him because he obviously wasn’t interested in _me_ and he still tried to kiss me.”

Jealousy rises like a flash fire that he moves quickly to smother.

“I’d say that indicates interest enough,” he says. It still sounds disappointingly bitter. He should be able to control himself better than that.

Jo sighs and raises an eyebrow at him. “Seriously? Do you know Dean at all? He kissed me because he thought I wanted him to kiss me. He wants to be wanted. It’s what makes him such a great friend. He’s always there for you, no matter what. Even if it means kissing.”

“Yes,” Castiel says, mostly because he doesn’t know what the proper response to such a declaration is supposed to be.

Balthazar is waiting at the door with his flute already packed up and ready to go. The rest of the band room has already cleared out save a few stragglers putting away their music stands.

“I must go,” he tells Jo, indicating Balthazar with a tilt of his head.

“Wait,” she says with a sigh. “You still don’t get it do you?”

Castiel freezes in his backwards step towards the door. “Get what?”

“Dean was waiting for _you_. He spent the entire time staring at you and then left right after _your_ solo.” She gestures wildly at Castiel’s chest with her mallets. “Ever since you two started fake dating, he’s turned down every offer he’s gotten. You and I, we’re in the same boat, but you actually have a chance of getting out and it is physically painful to watch you throw it away. So stop punishing him. He almost cried yesterday when he ate your stupid prosciutto sandwich thing.”

It’s not that he doesn’t believe her. He does. Too easily. And that in itself is a problem. He wants her words to be true, but she’s only speculating herself. But there is a chance, a small chance if he lets himself hope.

Castiel stumbles backwards as Jo hops off the drum, mallets still pointed dangerously at him. Noticing his caution, Jo drops her arm, smirking.

“I’m not going to hit you since you’re not a timpani or a manwhore,” she says, then narrows her eyes, “though I do hate you a little bit. I’m not a saint.”

Without another word, she skirts past him and Balthazar and out the door.

Castiel is only a little disappointed that Dean isn’t still in the parking lot, waiting.

 

 

 

***

 

Dean doesn’t know what changed, but Cas is suddenly there again.

Not in the way he was before. They don’t go out on Saturdays or invite each other over for dinner or play duets at the senior living center. But Cas is there in the bleachers for the last home game of the year and some mornings he shows up in running shoes at Dean’s doorstep and he’s actually using his locker again instead of stashing his stuff who knows where.

And Dean realizes what’s going on. Somewhere along the line, he decided to hand over the rulebook and let Cas do whatever the fuck he wants with it. Cas can call time outs and waltz right back in whenever he wants to and there’s nothing Dean can do about it. Cas is batter and ump and pitcher all at the same time while Dean’s stuck as shortstop, waiting for the ball to come his way. Somewhere along the line, this became Cas’ game.

He hates being powerless, but the only way to regain some sense of agency is to walk away. To forfeit. But that’s not how Dean does things. He will see this through to the end.

Still, he’s not completely useless. He still has a few good hits left in him.

Castiel opens the door wearing the same tux he wore at the orchestra concert. Dean didn’t get a good look at it before; he was seated too far away and for the majority of the concert, Cas was seated behind a giant cello. The tux had not gotten the appreciation it deserves.

It accentuates Cas’ broad shoulders and slim waist and his _legs_. Dean’s seen Cas in nothing but running shorts and a sweaty t-shirt, but for some reason _this_ is what makes the hairs at the back of his neck stand on end.

“Hello Dean,” Cas says patiently, fidgeting at little as he stands in his doorway. He looks softer than he usually does with his impossibly wide eyes, and if Dean didn’t know better, he’d say he was nervous.

Then Cas’ focus slips from Dean’s face to the driveway behind him. It’s almost comical how terrified Cas looks when he catches sight of the car. Dean would laugh, but he doesn’t want to risk scaring Cas off.

“It’s okay,” Dean says soothingly, “I know you two don’t get along, but give her another chance.”

Still, Cas looks about ready to bolt when Anna and her brilliant timing pop up behind him.

“I’m ready!” she announces with a smile that would put the Cheshire cat to shame. Sam is a lucky boy, because Anna is stunning in her green dress with her red hair put up in loose waves. Dean may be a little in love with her too when she grabs her cousin’s arm and drags him to the car. “Come on, Cas,” she says firmly, “We have to get there before all the good hors d'oeuvres are gone.”

A girl after Dean’s own heart.

Sam steps out of the passenger’s seat to open the back for Anna before sliding in next to her. His brother is a proper gentleman.

Dean is more like a sheepdog, crowding Cas from the back to make sure he actually gets into the car instead of making a break for it down the street. Not that it wouldn’t be hilarious.

The moment Cas sits down, his back goes rigid and his hands clutch nervously in his lap. Dean slams the door closed behind him and rushes to the driver’s side, breathing a sigh of relief that Cas is still frozen like a statue when he gets inside.

Then, making as big of a show of it as he can, Dean reaches behind his shoulder to grab the buckle dangling from the car roof. Sam and Anna are suspiciously quiet in the backseat.

“Hey, Castiel,” he teases, and Cas’ head creaks ninety degrees to his left. “I believe you owe baby an apology.”

Slowly, he draws the strap down across his chest before buckling the belt with a satisfying click. Cas’ eyes track the movement like a thirsty man watching water being poured just out of his reach.

“And before you ask,” Dean adds hastily, “yes, they meet every safety regulation imposed on your average 21st-century mid-sized sedan.”

Every cut into his baby’s upholstery was agony, but there was no way in hell Dean was showing up to his first and only school dance in a Camry. And it’s nice to see Cas actually relax into the leather seating, small smile on his lips as he gently pats the seat belt across his chest.

“I apologize,” Cas says, but not to Dean. He’s addressing the dashboard when he says, “We may have had our points of contention, but I believe we can now have a fulfilling and rewarding relationship.”

For no reason at all, Dean’s neck burns hot, so he looks away from the _moment_ Cas is having with the car to check on the other occupants.

“You guys good back there?” Dean asks, eyeing the pair in the rearview mirror. They’re beaming fit to burst. Anna even has her hand pressed to her mouth in order to smother something truly horrifying. Like cooing. Dean doesn’t need that right now.

“So Dean,” Sam wheedles as they pull out onto the road towards the high school, “since you’re bringing the car up to code and all that, maybe you can throw in an iPod dock.”

“Not gonna happen,” Dean says immediately. “There’s a difference between safe and douchey.”

“So you admit your _baby_ was unsafe before?” Cas asks.

“Hey,” Dean snaps. “You got your seatbelts. Don’t push it.”

“The car may also benefit from airbags,” Cas says, acting like he’s being perfectly reasonable when Dean can practically see the smirk hiding behind those innocent eyes. “And air-conditioning.”

“It’s okay, girl,” Dean says, petting the steering wheel. “It’s not your fault everyone in this car is a big, whiny baby.”

Apart from the affronts to his car, everything is fine until they pull up to the school. Dean lets Anna and Sam out first before circling back into the maze of parking. They’re here ten minutes before the official start to prom but the parking lot is already crowded. They dodge through people and cars and orange traffic cones before they end up in a spot at the edge of the soccer field.

Reality checks out the moment Dean looks across the bench seat to see Cas smiling at him, a ribboned box held in one hand. Cas pins the boutonniere on his lapel. Dean offers him his arm. They walk into the high school and sign in at the desk like they’re an actual couple. Like they’re one of the hundreds of other matched pairs leaning into each other on the dance floor.

Two months ago he hatched this entire plan to mess with Cas, to make this night confusing and to put him on edge. But it’s completely backfired because it’s Dean’s head that’s spinning in the middle of this mess of gaudy neon lighting and heavy bass.

Cas leads him out onto the dance floor without asking. It’d be pointless because Dean can’t allow himself to say no, hasn’t been able to since Cas gave him a sandwich made of pretentious Italian words. And like the sandwich, this shouldn’t be something he enjoys.

He shouldn’t like the solid warmth of Cas’ waist under his hands or the soft brush of Cas’ hair against his cheek or the minty citrus scent of his shampoo. He shouldn’t want to slide his hands under Cas’ jacket to get a better grip or press Cas’ head down onto his shoulder or bury his nose in those messy locks to see what Cas smelled like under the chemicals.

The dj shifts the track from 90s pop to something slow and romantic. As if on cue, the hand-waving and foot-stomping of the people around them stop. Dean catches a glimpse of Sam and Anna swaying together in place. He startles when he feels Cas’ hands slide to his back and his head drop to his shoulder, but he doesn’t protest. If anything he holds Cas closer.

The strobe lights slow down at the same time the bass quiets until both are almost bearable. Almost. Everything about this night is an almost.

Cas is almost real, pressed up against his chest. When Cas lifts his head up, his eyes are almost closed, his breath almost steady. Their lips are so close they can almost touch. And Dean almost believes it when Cas moves to close the distance.

“Cas,” he says shakily, stopping him a hairsbreadth away. He closes his eyes, because he can’t bear to see Cas when he’s already hearing him and feeling him and breathing him in. “I can’t do this if we’re still playing the game.”

They aren’t. They haven’t been for a while. But there’s still a sliver of doubt, and he can’t live with that once they’re making out on the dance floor or naked and panting in the backseat or driving three hours each way to see each other on the weekends since they’re not going to the same college but at least they’re both on the east coast.

“Dean,” Cas says in that earth and gravel voice of his, “open your eyes.”

They’re so close that all Dean can see is the dusky blue halo of Cas’ irises.

“Dean,” Cas says, and yes, it’s infinitely worse when Dean can see him, when he can glance down to watch his lips move around every word, worse even when that word is his name. “We stopped playing the game the moment you showed up at my door in a Camry.”

Those lips crushed against his own are so much better.

The music picks up again into something peppy and loud but they’re not moving anymore. Why would he when he can cup his hand around Cas’ jaw and run his fingers through his hair and feel Cas’ hands wrapped around his shoulders? Why would he when he can savor the brush of Cas’ lips against his own, taste the jalapeno poppers and sausage rolls on his tongue, hear the breathy moans as they finally pour into each other?

“Winchester! Novak!” someone says, sharp and loud and insignificant.

Then something thwacks against his head and there are hands pushing them apart.

Miss Moseley wades bodily between them, which is smart because that’s the only thing that’s keeping Dean away from Cas now that he’s rumpled and flushed and dark-eyed.

“This is a school-sponsored event, not a raunchy night club, so you two need to keep it PG. Mr. Winchester, your brother is standing right there.”

Sam is, in fact, only about ten feet away, but he isn’t watching Dean. In fact, he has his back turned resolutely. It’s Anna, actually, who’s laughing openly at them both.

“And Mr. Novak,” Miss Moseley continues, “I received a call earlier in the evening from the Miltons informing me that your presence is to be required while your cousin attends.”

Dean shoots Anna a toothy grin as she blanches in mortification.

“Which _means_ , the two of you won’t be sneaking off to the bleachers unless you would like me to call your aunt and uncle.”

“No, Miss Moseley,” Cas answers dutifully and Dean can’t help the wrench of disappointment thrown in his gut.

“I have my eye on you boys,” she warns before walking back to the perimeter.

It’s awkward now that they’re three feet apart and half the student body is watching the spectacle.

“Let’s go get some more of those sausage rolls,” Dean says, shooting Cas a wink before grabbing his hand and dragging him to the buffet table.

People go back to their dates and their dancing and the space between them has shrunk, but there’s still a heavy silence surrounding them as they raid the trays of finger food.

“I’m sorry that Michael ate Adam,” Cas blurts suddenly as Dean is reaching for the mini cheeseburgers.

“What?”

“Your mosquitofish. I’m sorry Michael ate him.”

“Michael? Your brother?”

“My angelfish,” Cas says, rubbing the back of his neck.

“You named that little monster after your brother?” Dean asks, incredulous. “I’ve been calling him Jaws.”

“Yes,” Cas says with a huff, “that seems appropriate.”

“You want him back?’ Dean fiddles with his plate.

“No. Michael was eating all my other fish. I think he’s better off alone.”

“He isn’t,” Dean says, feeling ridiculous. They just spent five minutes making out and now they’re talking about fish because the scary orchestra teacher is glaring at them from across the room. “Alone, I mean. Sam wanted one for his own terrarium, said they were more interesting than mosquitofish, so he bought one at the beginning of the school year. He brought it home after Thanksgiving and they’ve been living in the same fish bowl ever since.”

“Oh,” Cas says, looking a little shell-shocked. Dean supposes it is a little surprising to hear the monster fish you got rid of three years ago is now cohabiting pleasantly with a partner.

Or it might not be shock because now Cas is looking at him like he’s a tasty mosquitofish that he would very much like to devour. And Dean is okay with that.

A cleared throat from over his shoulder reminds him that Miss Moseley most definitely is not.

 

 

 

***

 

Anna sighs as she waits on a bench with Sam on one side and Miss Moseley on the other. It’s super embarrassing to have your parents called to a school dance because your cousin and his new boyfriend can’t keep their hands off each other long enough to enjoy the evening.

She should have let the baby otters drown.

 

 

 

***

 

**_Epilogue_ **

****

“Hey, check this out!” Dean says, pointing at his mock-up on the computer screen.

The wedding invitation he’s designed is bright blue with blocky silver text. It’s hideous.

“Are you trying to save money on catering?” Castiel asks, only half-joking. “No one will come if we send them that.”

“Oh come on,” Dean says, incredulous. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten.”

“Forgotten what?”

Castiel watches curiously as Dean runs to the bookshelf by the bay window and pulls out the binder full of old records and documents. He comes back holding a faded manila envelope whose corners have been rounded by time.

“What’s that?” Cas asks, trying to place where he’s seen it before.

“This!” Dean says, triumphant, as he extracts a piece of blue construction paper that’s purpled with age. It’s cut into a crude heart and on it are a few rows of neat text in crumbly silver glitter.

“Dearest Dean,” Cas reads, “I have secretly admired you for many years now. Dean, what is this? If this is an attempt to make me jealous, you’re about ten years too late. This must be from grade school!”

He’s only a little angry, would be more if Dean didn’t look so adorably confused.

“This is from you! Look,” Dean points at the signature. “Love Castiel. This is the entire reason we started that dumbass Mexican standoff.”

Sure enough, it’s his name at the bottom of the note, but it’s not his handwriting and he would never choose to write a letter in silver glitter.

“I didn’t write this,” he says, regretfully. Maybe if he had, they would have gotten together much sooner.

“Then who the hell-” Dean pauses, face darkening with realization. “Sam!”

**Author's Note:**

> I've never actually read Much Ado About Nothing, so I'd also like to thank Sparknotes and wikipedia for their wealth of knowledge and modern translation. Also my betas again because they are actually familiar with the source!
> 
> I tried to by witty. I'm really not. My apologies. I hope you enjoyed it anyways!
> 
> Title from this line in Act 1, Scene 1 spoken by Beatrice about Benedick: "They would else have been troubled with a pernicious suitor."


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